


irresistible force, a paradox

by sam_kom_trashkru



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - YouTube, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, happy birthday iz you dweeb, the fake dating is for like two seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 00:43:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_kom_trashkru/pseuds/sam_kom_trashkru
Summary: Beca isn’t entirely sure what her neighbor does for a living that requires enthusiastically knocking at her door at three o’clock in the morning for a pound of sugar, but either way, she’s annoyed.Or:Chloe Beale is the latest YouTube sensation sweeping the nation who is hopelessly gay for a neighbor she’s pretty sure doesn’t know she exists.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a birthday present for my favorite lightning rod, [Izzy](http://www.willhevondale.tumblr.com), happy seventeenth you big loser.
> 
> Also the formatting is a lil weird and the pacing is kinda a mess but here it is for your enjoyment.

There were two things Beca liked in the world:

  1. Sleep.
  2. Music.



Of course, sometimes the list became longer depending on the situation, and other frequenters were overcast days, getting blackout drunk with Stacie, and plates of waffles taller than her head. The list of things she _didn’t_ like was much longer, and currently at the top of that list was:

  1. Annoying neighbors who invade your home at ass o’clock in the morning asking for sugar.



Who even asked for sugar nowadays? Beca was certain that there were apps for these sorts of personal-crisis situations, like postmates. Or was postmates just for getting drunk burritos?

Drunk burrito apps aside, Beca was _not_ pleased.

She’d been in the middle of a rather pleasant dream that she couldn’t remember now, when her beauty sleep had been insurreptitiously awoken by a frantic pounding on her front door. At _ass o’clock_ in the morning. With a frown, Beca groggily made a grab for the metal baseball bat she kept at the side of her bed and stalked forward, stumbling once or twice over things she couldn’t see because it was _ass o’clock_ in the morning.

“Someone better be dying,” she grumbled in lieu of a greeting as she yanked the door open unceremoniously, a hand that had still been in the midst of knocking jolting forward, not expecting the sudden movement, and crashing into Beca’s unassuming forehead. “Dude _what the fuck!?_ ”

“Oh my god I’m _so_ sorry.”

Beca had made a habit of not getting to know her neighbors in the Barden Apartment Complex after Lilly from 6B had asked her if she had any bleach, surgical gloves, and industrial sized garbage bags, so she had no clue who this annoying redhead who had just _assaulted_ her was, nor did she _want_ to know, quite frankly. From first impression, though, what with the bright hair and the fact that she was filled with energy at _ass o’clock in the morning_ ―seriously? who was awake at this hour?―Beca assumed this was her next-door neighbor from 5C who forgot that the walls between their apartments were paper-thin and blasted Carly Rae Jepson’s _Call Me Maybe_ on repeat like clockwork every morning without the mind to participate in the common neighborly courtesy that was _headphones_.

She made a movement as though to grab and inspect Beca’s forehead, because she also apparently had no concept of the words _personal space_ , and Beca stepped back with a glare, raising her baseball bat up threateningly so that the unholy _demon_ would keep her distance.

(Maybe that was too harsh a term, but it was _ass o’clock_ in the morning. Beca was entitled to certain levels of grumpy hyperbolization, _thankyouverymuch._ )

“I’m so sorry,” the girl repeated, holding her hands up to her face, “oh my _god_ , are you okay?”

“Peachy,” Beca deadpanned with another glare. “What do you want?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if you had, um,” she winced, as though suddenly realizing there weren’t many things that warranted harassment and assault of a neighbor at _ass o’clock_ in the morning, “if you had some… sugar?”

Beca blinked owlishly at her for a few long moments, neither of them speaking.

“Let me get this straight,” Beca started, slowly, “you come pounding on my door, at―” she made a glance at her microwave clock to gauge the actual time, but since she hadn’t remembered to grab her glasses she didn’t have the _luxury_ of such knowledge “― _ass o’clock_ in the morning, only to _physically assault me―”_

“I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to!”

“ _Just to ask if I had sugar?”_ If Beca had been operating on a few more hours of sleep, she might have felt the slightest twinge of remorse for her scathing tone and the way the other human in front of her winced, but, since it _was_ ass o’clock in the morning, Beca felt no such guilt.

“A pound of sugar, actually,” she clarified.

Beca stared at her for another long moment.

“Right,” Beca sighed, pointing her baseball bat down the hall. “I don’t have any goddamn sugar, so you are going to go back to your apartment, close the door, and kindly never require my presence at this hour ever again.” Granted, she wasn’t sure what _this hour_ was, but she didn’t need to know. “And I am going to go the fuck back to sleep and pretend that this was all some weird nightmare.”

She moved to close the door, and the other girl protested.

“Wait, I also wanted to introduce myself, I’m―”

“― _still not leaving me alone_ ,” Beca finished, before closing the door with a flourish and locking it tightly shut. With a satisfied nod, she stumbled back in the direction of her room and collapsed back on her bed, desperate for the sweet embrace of dark unawareness.

The world, as it seemed, didn’t want Beca to sleep in.

“Wake up you lazy fuck.”

Beca groaned and pulled her pillow on top of her head, trying hopelessly to drown out the noise of her best friend, only to have the pillow yanked away from her by said friend in question.

“ _Fuck you_ ,” Beca whined vehemently, blinking against the harsh morning light to glare at Stacie’s stupid, smirking face.

“You already have, in case you’d forgotten,” she quipped, “many times throughout high school and college.”

“ _Eat my entire ass_.”

“.... _that_ , we never did, but only because I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.” Stacie waggled her eyebrows suggestively and Beca scowled at her, using every ounce of strength she could muster―which wasn’t a lot―to shove Stacie off of her bed.

With a quick glance at her phone, Beca groaned.

“You couldn’t have come later?” Before Stacie could turn her question into an innuendo, Beca amended. “You couldn’t have invaded my home at a later time? It’s a _Saturday,_ Stace. I gave you that key for _emergencies_.”

“This _is_ an emergency,” Stacie sighed, “it’s nine o’clock in the morning on one of my days off and my best friend is _sleeping_ the day away.”

For someone who spent their days jockeying with pretentious white guys as an aerospace engineer, Stacie acted a lot like she was still in college. Not that Beca minded, most of the time, going out with Stacie was _fun_ , she just wished she wouldn’t wake her up so early.

“What do you _want?_ ”

“Get your cute butt in the shower and get ready for the day, we’re going _shopping_.”

“We went shopping last week.”

“Beca if you keep complaining I’m going to drag you to the shower myself.”

“ _Fine_.”

Days spent shopping with Stacie weren’t as horrible as Beca paints them to be in her head, once she actually managed the incredibly difficult act of waking up. Stacie is a whirlwind of activity that Beca sorely needs in her life, and she’s certain that if she didn’t have the other girl’s presence in her life, Beca would be an _actual_ hermit.

Because, as Stacie liked to constantly remind her, being barely-cordial with her coworkers at the radio was not synonymous with having a social life.

“Come on,” Stacie beckoned as she pulled Beca towards whatever latest fashion trend existed, “you need something in your wardrobe that isn’t black.”

* * *

 

“Hey guys!” Chloe’s voice was bright and bubbly as ever as she pressed the _record_ button on her camera, lights shining on her face at an angle that gave her an angelic glow, poised and pretty as ever. “So I know I promised you guys a baking video but I started filming it at three in the morning only to find that I didn’t have any sugar and, well, my neighbor wasn’t too pleased when I tried to wake her up.” She winced visibly. “I probably should have known better than to go knocking at that hour.” _Ass o’clock in the morning_ , she remembered fondly, and she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks.

“You did _what_?”

Aubrey Posen had been Chloe’s best friend since the fateful day in Miss Whinesock’s kindergarten class, so it only made sense that the two of them would be roommates. While Chloe spent her days in front of a camera, Aubrey was in and out working at some sort of leadership retreat that Chloe had only heard horror stories about―from the participants, never Aubrey, because Aubrey _existed_ to boss people around, thrived on it, even―on top of being Chloe’s pseudo-manager.

_“Aubs, I don’t even think I need a manager. My channel’s only at like, what, half a million?”_

“ _For now, but it’ll grow, mark my words, and then you’re going to need me. Might as well start now.”_

Aubrey had been right, of course―she always was, after all―and ever since, she and Chloe had worked together in tandem.

“I…” Chloe trailed off, blinking slowly at her roommate, “may have gone knocking on our neighbor’s door―”

“The one in 5B?”

“Yes, that one,” Chloe agreed, “looking for sugar, and I _may_ have accidentally punched her in the face.

* * *

 

“Your _neighbor_ did that?” Stacie repeated, a perfectly manicured eyebrow raised as she nodded her head in the direction of the bruise on Beca’s forehead that she’d only just noticed. Beca hummed in agreement.

“She invaded my home and _assaulted me_ at _ass o’clock_ in the morning,” she grumbled, “I don’t understand what the universe has against me getting decent amounts of sleep.”

“What’d she look like?” Stacie asked innocently, and Beca narrowed her eyes at her.

“Don’t you go trying to play matchmaker, Stacie Conrad. Besides, I don’t even know her, so whatever unfounded thoughts there are running through your mind are completely ridiculous.”

* * *

 

“It’s completely ridiculous,” Aubrey told the camera seriously, plopped down next to Chloe on the couch she’d been recording from. Whatever plans Chloe had previously for a video were thrown out the window as Aubrey decided to make her point known. “She’s got a massive crush on our neighbor when she doesn’t even know her _name_.”

“I know her name!” Chloe defended with a huff.

“ _Accidentally_ taking her mail from the lobby does not count as knowing her name, Chloe. You two haven’t been properly introduced, ergo, you don’t know each other.”

“She’s just really pretty, okay?” Chloe defended, and Aubrey rolled her eyes.

“She looks like she’s just rolled out of a Hot Topic whenever I see her, all black clothing, moody eyeliner, the works. She’s probably some emo, evanescence-type weirdo.” Before Chloe can open her mouth to defend her, Aubrey continues. “And you don’t even know enough about her to defend her properly. She could be a murderer for all we know.”

“She works at a radio,” Chloe offered as some meek form of explanation for the wardrobe made up of almost entirely black clothing, “so it makes sense. Or maybe it’s just that she… really likes black.”

Chloe, who lived life in a vibrancy of colors, her own wardrobe a spectrum of pantone shades that never seems to end, couldn’t fathom the thought of a desire to be monochromatic, but she wondered, secretly, if Beca just needed a little color to liven up her days.

“Well, even if you know her name, she doesn’t know yours,” Aubrey continued, “really, Chlo, move on to greener pastures. I don’t understand why you ended things with Tom.”

“Tom didn’t know _any_ Beyonce songs, Aubs, it just wasn’t going to work out.”

* * *

 

Beca usually covered the afternoon to evening shift on the radio, Luke picking up the hours late into the night because he was, as a direct quote, _still in the Australian timezone so it didn’t bother him much anyways_ , but that night he’d called in sick so she was stuck at the studio until only god knew when.

“Alright we’re back with… what does Luke call the night segment? Probably something weird and australian… as you can tell this is DJ Mitch still with you beyond my usual time because Luke decided to contract the bubonic plague in our year of twenty-seventeen. He’s got a set list already queued up but I’ll probably talk a little just to piss him off.”

She hummed and adjusted the volume on the board.

“So last night I had the weirdest encounter with my neighbor…”

* * *

 

Chloe frowned when her late-night video editing session was interrupted by someone fiddling with her doorknob, a soft _fuck_ echoing through the halls.

Aubrey was fast asleep, and nothing short of the death of Mariah Carey could wake her when she slept. _Nothing_.

“ _Why aren’t you working?”_ Chloe’s anxiety dulled when she crept closer to the door. She’d recognize that whining, pitiful tone from anywhere.

Chloe opened the door abruptly, and Beca yelped as she stumbled forward into the girl, hitting her forehead on Chloe’s chin.

“Ow! _Jesus!”_ With a backwards glance at the grandfather clock Aubrey had insisted they keep in their apartment, Chloe grinned, _three o’clock_.

“Now look who’s knocking on whose door at―what did you call it?― _ass o’clock_ in the morning.” Beca frowned at her, fighting off a yawn, and Chloe couldn’t help but smile. For all the dark, gloomy clothing and apathetic aura Beca Mitchell tried to surround herself with, she was, without a doubt, _adorable_.

“What do you mean?” Beca grumbled. “This is my apartment.”

Chloe pointedly glanced in the direction of the plate that clearly read _5C_ and Beca deflated.

“Oh. This is _your_ apartment.”

“I guess we’re even, then,” Chloe grinned, and Beca shot her a glance clearly meant to say ‘ _why the hell are you so awake at this godforsaken hour’_ but Chloe ignored it in favor of holding out her hand.

“Chloe Beale.”

Tentatively, as though she might contract some disease, Beca accepted the offered hand and shook once, before quickly taking her hand away.

“Beca Mitchell.”

She turned sharply on her heel and promptly tripped, cursing to herself as she made her way over to her apartment, and Chloe sighed as she leaned into her doorway.

 _Insanely_ adorable.

* * *

 

There were three things Beca Mitchell liked in this world:

  1. Sleep.
  2. Music.
  3. Rules that made her life simple.



Currently at the top of the list of things she _didn’t_ like was:

  1. Annoying neighbors who ignore rules meant to ensure simplicity of life.



Regardless of how stubbornly Beca had been set in not getting to know any of her neighbors, Chloe-from-5C seemed set out to make an indelible mark on Beca’s previously peaceful life.

She was everywhere.

In the lobby collecting mail, conveniently at the same time Beca chose to wander out of her apartment in search of something to do. At the coffee shop down the street that made cocoa just the way Beca remembered liking it as a child, sipping on some insanely sugared up concoction with questionable ingredients. At the grocery store three blocks down, comparing pasta brands with a frown marring her stupid face.

 _Everywhere_.

And, even worse, _Stacie_ had noticed.

Stacie, who lived to make Beca’s life a living hell.

“Isn’t that your neighbor?” Stacie asked when Beca ducked behind a row of cereal boxes, trying desperately to avoid detection.

“No,” Beca brushed off, but by Stacie’s eyeroll she knew her words weren’t believable. The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, and Beca’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t you _dare_.”

“Or you’ll do what, exactly?” Stacie’s eyes danced with mischief―something that only meant trouble in Beca’s experience, which she had a _lot_ of when it came to Stacie―and before Beca could tackle her into silence and submission, she opened her mouth and did the worst thing imaginable.

She _called attention_ to the two of them.

“Hey! Aren’t you Beca’s neighbor?”

Chloe turned, startled, obviously not expecting to be verbally assaulted by a complete stranger―yet seemed oddly unsurprised by it at the same time? which was confusing but Beca didn’t have time to dwindle on such thoughts when there was the more pressing matter of _Stacie inevitably making a mess_ to worry about―though she relaxed at the mention of Beca’s name.

 _Don’t relax!_ Beca internally willed. _Be alarmed! Be very alarmed! Stacie is the literal spawn of Satan himself._

“I am,” Chloe greeted, putting a box of pasta into her cart to offer a hand for a still-grinning Stacie to shake, “though I don’t suppose the neighbor you mentioned is hiding behind the cereal?”  

So much for being covert.

“I was just, uh, looking,” Beca coughed as she stood up, fighting the urge to stab Stacie with the diabetes-in-a-box that was American cereal. People tended to not fuck with you once you killed someone brutally with a box of breakfast food, Beca reasoned, it made perfect sense.

“You don’t eat breakfast,” Stacie reported matter-of-factly, ignoring Beca’s glare and shaking Chloe’s offered hand. “Stacie Conrad.”

“Chloe Beale.”

“Great we’re all introduced, so sorry to bother you Chloe, we’ll just be leaving.” Beca made a grab for Stacie’s arm that she deftly side-stepped.

“Oh, it’s really not a problem,” Chloe assured, eyes sparkling. “How do you know Beca?” There was an edge to her words that Beca couldn’t quite comprehend, but Stacie grinned wickedly.

“I’m the only reason she made it through high school. And college, if we’re being honest.”

“More like you’re the reason I spent half of my time in college blackout drunk,” Beca glowered.

“You lived, didn’t you?”

_Regrettably._

“I may have, but my liver still suffers to this day.” Stacie waved an arm in dismissal, sufficiently silencing Beca’s complaints.

“So, pasta night?”

“Oh, yeah. My roommate, Aubrey, she needs carbs to unwind every now and then.”

“Well I _certainly_ know something about people needing to unwind.”

Beca was going to murder Stacie one of these days.

* * *

 

Among many things Stacie Conrad had been called in her life―most of them unflattering and leered at her from the groups of drunk, hormone-driven men stuck in a permanent boyhood―one that she acknowledged the most truth in was that she was an instigator, a meddler.

It was _painfully_ obvious that Chloe had a, for lack of a better term, _gigantic_ lady-boner for Beca. Beca, however, was painfully _oblivious_ to this fact, as she was so stubbornly set in not forming relationships outside of the ones she’d deemed necessary. Stacie had a history of getting Beca to do things, though, and this would be no different.

Which is how she’d managed to get not only Chloe’s phone number, but also the number of her roommate, Aubrey, under the premise of exchanging pasta recipes.

Beca needed to get laid, and after she and Stacie had ended their friends-with-benefits gig, Stacie felt as though it was her solemn duty to find _someone_ to screw the angst out of her. And if anyone was capable of that, it was Chloe Beale.

Something about her had seemed familiar, and a quick google search later, Stacie knew why.

**_Devil in Heels_ **

_You didn’t tell me your neighbor was an internet star._

**_Edgelord_ **

_Um_

_??????_

**_Devil in Heels_ **

_Chloe._

_She does YouTube._

**_Edgelord_ **

_Fat Amy does YouTube._

Ah, Beca’s australian foreign exchange student from high school. Known for her mermaid dancing and hatred of cardio, as well as the video of her _actually_ wrestling a crocodile on her YouTube channel. They’d thought she’d been joking.

**_Devil in Heels_ **

_Okay._

_But unlike Fat Amy._

_She’s actually successful._

**_Edgelord_ **

_I resent that sentiment on Fat Amy’s behalf._

_What does she do._

_Wait, let me guess._

_Makeup shit._

**_Devil in Heels_ **

_If I didn’t know you better I’d suspect you’d watched them._

_But yea, she’s a beauty guru._

**_Edgelord_ **

_It all makes so much sense now._

**_Devil in Heels_ **

_I’d watch some of her videos._

_;) ;) ;)_

**_Edgelord_ **

_Yeah no._

_I’m busy._

**_Devil in Heels_ **

_With what? Being an angsty teen?_

**_Edgelord_ **

_[middle finger emoji]_

If Beca bothered to watch Chloe’s videos on YouTube, she’d see the several dozen that had accumulated about _the cute neighbor_ who Chloe was smitten with.

Somehow, amidst all her social awkwardness and sleep-deprived violent tendencies, Beca _still_ had enough game to get the girl, even if she didn’t know she’d gotten the girl yet. Or that she even wanted to get the girl in the first place.

Stacie had a lot of work to do, that much was glaringly obvious.

But she had a good starting point

_Is this Aubrey?_

**_Pasta Aubrey_ **

_Uh. Yes?_

_Who is this?_

**_Stranger ?_ **

_Beca Mitchell’s best friend._

_Stacie._

**_Pasta Aubrey_ **

_Oh._

**_Stacie_ **

_I see she’s made quite the impression._

_Enough to get Chloe to get hit w the gay._

_:p_

**_Pasta Aubrey_ **

_No._

**_Stacie_ **

_No what? I haven’t said anything._

**_Pasta Aubrey_ **

_You’re gonna try and get them together._

_I can sense it._

_And for the record, I don’t approve of Beca._

**_Stacie_ **

_For the record, Becs is great._

_A little standoffish._

_But fucking fantastic._

_And a fantastic fuck_

_;)_

**_Pasta Aubrey_ **

_Didn’t need to know that._

_At all._

_And my answer is still no._

**_Stacie_ **

_Ok but have you considered…_

She was nothing if not convincing, after all.

―――――――-

Beca wasn’t quite sure when she and Chloe had gone from neighbors who barely knew each other’s names to… _friends_.

She was fairly certain Stacie had something to do with it, but friendship had crept up on her silently as a show, and by the time she realized it had happened it was too late to stop it. As a child, Beca had often wondered about the age-old question of what happened when an unstoppable force met an immovable object, and now, as it seemed, she was finally learning the answer.

Chloe Beale was, without a doubt, an unstoppable force.

Always bright and bubbly and _eager_ , radiating sunshine and joy and all the things Beca wasn’t. Her life was a flurry of movement, fluid and free, summed up perfectly in spontaneous neighborly visits in pursuit of sugar at three o’clock in the morning. She’d somehow managed to squeeze her way through the thin cracks of Beca’s carefully constructed barriers, filling her corners with laughter and _color_. Oh, the color. Vibrant, awe-inspiring, and breathtaking.

And if Chloe was an unstoppable force, that made Beca the immovable object.

In hindsight, Beca blamed her father for the majority of her isolationist tendencies, her insecurities and severe abandonment issues. After he’d left, without so much as a word to his wife or the daughter that so adored him, in the dead of the night, Beca had changed, grown cold to the world, distrustful and hesitant. Her actions were carefully planned and even more carefully executed, existence dependent on her independence, with few exceptions.

Chloe had been persistent on becoming one such exception.

And unlike the vast majority of others who had tried, Chloe _succeeded_.

Late night run-ins had gradually turned into texting which had lead to breakfasts― _it’s the most important meal of the day, Beca,_ because of _course_ Chloe Beale was a breakfast person, it made sense―which had evolved to lunches and then suddenly Beca found herself in the company of Chloe almost as often as Stacie. And for someone who hated change so much as Beca did, she was surprisingly… _okay_ with it.

There was something about Chloe, she supposed, that seemed inevitable.

What _didn’t_ seem inevitable was Beca’s twitter following suddenly shooting skywards.

As a DJ on a fairly popular radio station, Beca was no stranger to having social media that was mildly popular. But this? This was ridiculous.

She sourced it to one tweet that had been retweeted already by Stacie. _Surprise Surprise._

 

 

> **_Stacie Retweeted:_ **
> 
> _@ **emilyjunk** : omg omg omg i just figured it out guys. @ **chloebeale** 's neighbor is @ **becamitch** AHHH. I SHIP IT_
> 
> _@ **emilyjunk:** #Bechloe_

Waiting on her phone was an assault of text messages. 

_**Professional Mermaid Dancer** _

_Dude what the fuck_

_We agreed that if you were ever going to date a YouTube star_

_It was going to be me._

_We had a BLOOD OATH_

**_Devil in Heels_ **

_Check twitter babe :* :*_

**_Annoying Ginger_ ** _**Neighbor**_

_I'M SO SORRY._

_My viewers can be.... intense._

Ignoring the texts from Amy and Stacie, Beca opened the thread of messages between herself and Chloe, quickly typing out a reply. 

_**Dweeb Next Door** _

_Don't sweat it._

_So Bechloe, huh?_

_**Annoying Ginger Neighbor** _

_Seems so._

**_Devil in Heels_ **

_Also if you haven't watched any of those videos._

_Now would be an opportune moment._

_[Link: One Youtube Playlist, Cute Neighbor Chronicles]_

An hour of YouTube style education later and a lot of things made more sense than they had. 

_Oh._

That's why Chloe had been so persistent. 

She supposed she was meant to be surprised, but Beca wasn't stupid. Maybe more similar to Ron Weasley in the way that, to quote Hermione, she had the emotional range of a teaspoon, but she wasn't  _clueless_ _,_ though Stacie would argue differently. She'd picked up on the subtle flirting, the way that Chloe was far more patient with her than anyone Beca had ever seen Chloe with, tapering her touchy tendencies to respect Beca's personal space and constantly seeking her out. 

Again, there had just been something about Chloe that seemed inevitable. 

_**Edgelord** _

_So._

_I'm gay for Chloe._

**_Devil in Heels_ **

_No shit, Sherlock._

_Took you long enough._

_Now, what are you going to do about it?_

* * *

_Six Months Later_

"Hey guys!" Chloe beamed as she hit the record button on her camera, clad in only a worn, faded baseball t-shirt and boxers, though only the shirt was in frame. "After much anticipation, and  _plenty_ of pestering on your part, finally, the long awaited... drumroll please." Off-camera, Stacie and Aubrey laughed, drumming on their legs rapidly. "The girlfriend tag!"

On cue, Beca popped up, disgruntled expression fixed on her face, offset by the pastel pink of a sweater that most definitely wasn't hers. 

"We didn't really want to go with a specific set of questions, so I asked you to submit your queries under the hashtag  _AskBechloe_ , and Stacie's going to read them to us."

That, Beca would remember in hindsight, was their first mistake. Trusting Stacie with anything. 

"I'll start you guys off easy," Stacie teased, "how did you meet."

"Oh, well you already know that story―"

"―Chlo punched me in the face."

It'd become a joke between the two of them as time passed, Chloe consistently waking up Beca much too early for normal human activity. 

"Alright, alright, I'll move on. What was your first date like?"

* * *

"Hey, Chlo?"

Chloe looked up from where she'd been focusing on painting her nails to observe Beca, who seemed more jittery than usual. Chloe frowned, concerned. 

"What's up Becs?"

"I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

"Anything," Chloe answered promptly, because it was true. There was nothing Beca Mitchell could ask her to do that she wouldn't jump headfirst into, beyond, perhaps, manslaughter. 

"So I have this party for work, since we got this new sponsorship, and my coworker, Jesse, keeps asking me to go with him as his date, but doesn't seem to understand that I'm  _not interested_ in him like that. I'm pretty sure he thinks the friendzone is a real thing." Chloe Beale would  _absolutely_ consider manslaughter now, especially considering what Beca had just revealed about this  _manchild_ named Jesse. Who even named their kid Jesse anyways? It was just a fuckboy name. 

"Not your type?" Beca's nose crinkled rather adorably and Chloe suppressed the urge to kiss her. 

"Too male."

Oh.

_Oh._

That was certainly...

_...enlightening._

"So, I was wondering," Beca continued nonchalantly, as though she hadn't broken Chloe Beale with two simple words. "If you'd go with me."

"....as your date?" Chloe wondered out loud, because she could only be dreaming. 

"Well, I figured, the internet already thinks we're dating, and I really don't need Jesse harassing me the entire time, and―" There came reality, crashing in as painfully as ever. 

"You need me to pretend to be your girlfriend," Chloe clarified, and Beca swallowed before nodding. 

"Yeah, basically."

. _oOo_.

" _You did WHAT!?"_

"I panicked, Stace, alright! What would you have done!"

" _I would have said: hey, I'm a consenting adult, you're a consenting adult, we're both obviously interested in one another, wanna fuck? Or like, at least have asked her out on an_ actual  _date and not asked her to be your fake date. Seriously, Becs? Fake dating? Who even does that? Has your life become some sort of trashy fanfiction trope?"_

"Ok so I know it's not an  _ideal_ situation―"

" _You bet your cute ass it isn't. Honestly I can't trust you to do_ anything.  _You can't even ask a girl out properly."_

"I panicked!"

" _Yes, I understand that, but normal panic is just chickening out. But no, you have to have your own special Beca-branded panic in which you_ completely fuck up your plans _."_

"Thanks for the encouragement, Stace, I really appreciate it."

_"You're an idiot."_

_.oOo._

Chloe Beale had known Jesse Swanson for all of two hours and she already hated every fiber of his being. 

Granted, he was the reason she was here, with Beca, as her  _date_ , regardless of whether or not it was fake, but also, he was the reason Beca needed a fake date. The moment Beca had walked in, arm linked in Chloe's, his face had fallen, an annoyed frown on his lips, an impatient bounce to his step. Clearly one of those self-entitled pretentious types. 

Throughout the night, despite Chloe's presence at Beca's arm as they made the rounds, he'd never been far behind them, gaze lingering on Beca in ways that made rage simmer in the depths of Chloe's soul. 

Finally, after two hours, he made his move.

"Beca!" he greeted her warmly, a smile plastered on his face as he moved to hug her, expression wavering somewhat when Beca instead nestled further into Chloe's side. "You been having fun?" His eyes drifted to Chloe for a moment, distasteful and dismissive. 

"Oh yeah, for sure," Beca answered, nodding emphatically along with her words, "Chloe, babe, this is Jesse, the coworker I was telling you about. Jesse, this is Chloe."

"Your friend?" he asked as he shook Chloe's hand briefly, her grip tighter than was probably acceptable. 

"Actually her girlfriend," Chloe corrected with a tight smile, doing her best to ignore the way her heart constricted at the very utterance of the words.  _Her girlfriend_. She wished the words were true, more than anything. That she was there as Beca's actual date and not her fake date. 

"So like, you're friends," Jesse repeated, and Chloe felt her eye legitimately twitch. She'd seen countless articles calling women who were  _clearly_ dating 'gal pals', but hadn't thought she'd ever have to meet one of the idiots with like-minded ideas in the flesh. 

"No, we're. We're dating," Chloe tried once more, and Jesse, in his deluded attempts to pretend that Beca was interested in him, somehow managed to still dodge the truth, clearly befuddled. 

"Oh my  _god_ ," Beca sighed, and then before Chloe could fully comprehend what was happening, her face was being cupped in small, delicate hands, and Beca was kissing her, and Chloe stopped breathing. But then the realization of the moment struck her and she kissed back fervently, because if this was going to be her only chance to kiss Beca Mitchell she was damn well going to make the most of it. 

When they parted, Beca's lips were stained red with Chloe's lipstick, the both of them flustered as though they were teenage girls in the aftermath of their first kiss. Jesse, sometime while they'd been in a liplock, had sulked away, but Chloe couldn't bring herself to think of him in all his irrelevance in that moment. All that mattered was she was there, with Beca Mitchell, and that Beca Mitchell had kissed her and it was perfect in all the ways that Chloe had imagined. 

In the distance, someone wolf-whistled, and Beca's cheeks flushed, color rising to the tips of her ears, and she pulled Chloe away from the masses. 

"I'm so sorry about that," Beca apologized, "it's just he wasn't shutting up and I just really wanted to kiss you and I'm usually all about consent and I shouldn't have just grabbed your face like that..." she continued to ramble on, but Chloe's mind zeroed in on a particular part of her sentence. 

"Wait," Chloe interrupted, grin creeping onto her face, "you really wanted to kiss me?"

"Well, yeah," Beca sputtered, uncharacteristically bashful, "I mean, who, uh, wouldn't want to kiss you? You're perfect. Not in a gay way, though, unless you wanted it to be in a gay way. Uh  _wiedersehen._ I'm digging myself into a hole here."

"I thought I was just here as your fake date," Chloe laughed, and Beca suddenly became very interested in the wall behind her. 

"Yeah, well, I was gonna ask you to come as my date regardless of Jesse being a douche he was just a convenient excuse and I panicked and―" Chloe laughed, heart swelling within her chest, before she leaned forward to take Beca's face in her hands―it was  _her_ turn to fluster Beca, after all―recapturing her lips in an attempt to silence her. 

"You're an idiot."

"I'm an idiot," Beca readily agreed. "Kiss me again?"

"Gladly."

* * *

"Does that really count as a first date? Because technically Beca said it was a fake date."

"Details, Stace, details," Beca brushed off, leaning into Chloe's side as the questions persisted. Chloe's fingers found their way into her hair, scratching at her scalp softly, and Beca sighed contentedly, a small smile fixed on her face. 

"Alright, then, let's look for some more good ones. Oh, ha, I'm not even going to bother asking you two this because it's so glaringly obvious."

"Well now you have to read it," Chloe persisted. 

"Well @therealfatamy, shoutout to Fat Amy, by the way, asked who the top was. But it's evident that Beca could never be dominant even if she  _tried_ so we're going to ignore that question and blame it on confused australians." Chloe burst into a fit of giggles as Beca scowled. 

"What is that supposed to mean! Tops and bottoms aren't even really a thing in relationships with two girls! It's give-and-take! And besides, I could  _too_ be dominant!"

"Sure, babe,  _sure_ ," Chloe reassured, kissing the pout off of Beca's face, "whatever you say."

"You're a bully," Beca whined petulantly. 

"And you're a three-year-old," Stacie pointed out, "anyways, moving on, @emilyjunk asks, what are weird habits your girlfriend has."

"Oh, this one's easy," Chloe exclaimed, "Beca writes so many lists.  _So many._ For literally everything. There are little post-it notes all over our apartment that are just filled with nonsensical lists of things that don't even need lists.

There was one thing in the world Beca hated:

  1. Annoying friends making fun of her for the entire internet to enjoy. 



But there were three things now in the world that Beca loved more than anything:

  1. Sleep.
  2. Music. 
  3. Chloe Beale.



As she stared at Chloe, prattling off about a few of the lists she'd found, Beca's mind strayed to the days of her childhood, sitting in the back of science classrooms and wondering about that impossible question, of what happened when an unstoppable force met an immovable object. 

She'd never have expected the answer would be something so simple as a chemical mixture of dopamine, seratonin, and oxytocin. 

Looking into Chloe's eyes, though, it made sense. 

**Author's Note:**

> For all those who didn't know, dopamine, seratonin, and oxytocin are the chemical components for love. Bc Beca's gay like that. 
> 
> Also @Iz I think all my writing is trash but I hope you liked it.


End file.
